both ends of the bar'l fast enough, and it swelled up and busted." Wall, we all took a fresh chew of terbacker and nudged each other; and Ezra Hoskins sed he didn't remember as how he'd ever seen it rain quite so hard as that, but he'd seen some mighty dry weather; he sed one time when he wuz out in Kansas it got so tarnation dry that fish a-swimmin' up the river left a cloud of dust behind them. And hot, too; why, it got so allfired hot that one day he tied his mule to a pen of popcorn out behind the barn, and it got so hot that the corn got to poppin' and flyin' 'round that old mule's ears and he thought it wuz snow and laid down and froze to death. Wall, about that time old Jim Lawson commenced to show signs of uneasiness, and someone sed, "What is it, Jim?" and Jim remarked, as he shifted his terbacker and cut a sliver off from his wooden leg, "I wuz a-thinkin' about a cold spell we had one winter when we wuz a-livin' down Nantucket way. It wuz hog killin' time, if I remember right; anyhow, we had a kittle of bilin' water sottin' on the fire, and we sot it out doors to cool off a little, and that water froze so durned quick that the ice wuz hot." Ezra sed, "Guess its 'bout shettin' up time." Jim Lawson's Hoss Trade SPEAKIN' of hoss tradin', now Jim Lawson was calculated to be about the best hoss trader in Punkin Centre. Yes, Jim he could sot up on a fence, chew terbacker, whittle a stick, and jist about swap ye outen your eye-teeth, if you'd listen to him. Yas, Jim wuz some punkins on a swap; Jim 'd swap anything he had fer anything he didn't want, jist to be swappin'. Wall, a gypsy cum along one day and tackled Jim fer a swap; and about that time Jim he'd got hold of a critter that had more cussedness in him to the squar inch than any critter we'd ever sot eyes on, 'cept a cirkus mule that Ezra Hoskins owned.